Our Top Apps and Learning Tips for Students’ Vocabulary

Words are the building blocks of the English language and having a wide-ranging vocabulary of words is so important to improving both spoken and written English language. Introducing new words, and helping students to use them to improve their vocabulary (at any age), will equip them for writing; help them express themselves more successfully and – in turn – help improve their grades.

It’s been shown through research that students need to be exposed to a new vocabulary word between 12 to 16 times in order to remember it and be able to use it effectively, so we need to be providing vocabulary practice whenever we can!

Apps offer a great (and often fun) way in help students effectively learn new words. There are some super interactively applications that help introduce, reinforce and provide practice for your students. Here are our top tips for using some of the best ones:

1) Introduce New Nouns: Nouns are the easiest type of words to expand on and apps can offer visual and interactive ways to expend your students’ range of nouns. Try Sight Words – Nouns with its 90 nouns for children to read and learn through Flash Cards, Find Words and Spelling Practice. In the Flash Cards mode, children are presented with words to read; in the Find mode, children select the right word to match what they hear and in the Spelling Practice mode, children rearrange letters to spell the words that they have heard.

2) Bring Adjectives to life:Adjectives for Kids bring these harder-to-remember words to life through sentences, images and sounds that clearly illustrate their meaning and appeal to the senses. This Android app provides a great way for you to test your young students’ adjective understanding!

3) Tailor Word Choices: Sometime adjectives are better brought to life when matched with a relevant image and apps such as Word SlapPs can help you provided bespoke images to match your students words, making them personalised and therefore more memorable. This is especially impactful for special needs students.

4) Match Pairs..to Perfection!: The pairs game is a great way to teach, practise and reinforce new words, teaching young children (or those with language delay) new vocabulary and problem-solving skills. One of the best apps for this is Pick a Pair which is FREE and suitable for children from 3-5, or older children who struggle with retaining words.

5) Practice Makes Perfect: Help 11+ students practise vocab with 11+ Vocab Builder. It helps builds agility in English and Verbal reasoning, with about 4,000 unique vocabulary words, and has 3 different modes: practice mode and exam modes which limits the time allowed per question, and another one limiting the time allowed for each test: really great for building independent vocabulary.